New Kensington Thunderbolt 3 dock has 100W power delivery, dual 4K display support

Kensington has debuted a new Thunderbolt 3 dock, aimed at hot-desking and work-from-home environments, that can deliver up to 100 watts of power and drive dual 4K monitors.

The Kensington SD5600T sports a total of seven USB ports, including a single cross-compatible USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 port and six USB-A ports at 5Gbit/sec. Additionally, it has a pair of DisplayPort and HDMI ports, a 3.5mm auxiliary jack, both SD and Micro SD card slots, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The 100W of power delivery also means that the SD5600T dock can charge even the 16-inch MacBook Pro model at maximum speed, which ships with a 96W power adapter.

When connected to a Thunderbolt 3 Intel Mac or Windows PC, it can drive up to two 4K monitors at 60Hz. It also provides data transfers speeds of up to 40Gbps for Thunderbolt 3 connection, and 10Gbps for second-generation USB-C.

The device is plug-and-play on both supported operating systems, and comes with Kensington's DockWorks software and a three-year warranty. It also supports both horizontal or vertical placement on a desktop, and is compatible with existing Kensington "zero-footprint" mounting options.

Although compatible with Thunderbolt 4 devices running either Windows or macOS, the SD5600T delivers Thunderbolt 3 specifications and performance. For Mac users, the dock requires macOS 10.14 or later.

The SD5600T dock retails for $289.99, and is available to order from Kensington's website.

9 Comments

frank777 5762 comments · 22 Years

About 3 years ago

AppleInsider said:

Although compatible with Thunderbolt 4 devices running either Windows or macOS, the SD5600T delivers Thunderbolt 3 specifications and performance. For Mac users, the dock requires macOS 10.14 or later.

My understanding, which could be incorrect, is that Thunderbolt 4 isn't faster than Thunderbolt 3 - it just adds a few additional features and security protocols to the spec. So why introduce a TB3 dock now, when TB4 is out and has only a few minor changes to implement?

neo-tech 38 comments · 15 Years

This is very likely a matter of the dock not being able to meet the criteria necessary for a TB4 licence, or even just a licensing fee issue.

I’d rather have a TB4 dock myself, if I was in the market.

Mike Wuerthele 6901 comments · 8 Years

frank777 said:

AppleInsider said:

Although compatible with Thunderbolt 4 devices running either Windows or macOS, the SD5600T delivers Thunderbolt 3 specifications and performance. For Mac users, the dock requires macOS 10.14 or later.

My understanding, which could be incorrect, is that Thunderbolt 4 isn't faster than Thunderbolt 3 - it just adds a few additional features and security protocols to the spec. So why introduce a TB3 dock now, when TB4 is out and has only a few minor changes to implement?

Docks and whatnot typically take about a year to conceptualize, design, mass produce, and ship. So, what you're seeing today, has been in the works since about November 2019.

TB4 chipsets weren't shipping in November of 2019.

Eric_WVGG 969 comments · 8 Years

I feel kind of bad for these dock manufacturers… Apple releases the 16" with a buck-wild 100 watt charger, we all complain, the dock guys come through for us… and the 16" M1 is going to require nowhere close to this much juice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

sflocal 6133 comments · 16 Years

The lack of a pass-thru TB3 port makes this dock a dead-end to me. Caldigit TS3+ is the sure-fire winner for me (it's what I have) because it has dual TB3 ports on the back. Anker just came out with a similar model that looks really nice as well.

I bought the Caldigit TS3 dock for my iMac and bolted it under my desk so I can hide all the cables/wires and also plug my second TB2 Apple monitor to it which is why it's important to have that second TB2 port to daisy chain additional TB2/TB3 devices from it. It's silly that some vendors don't include it when that's one of the advantages to Thunderbolt.